


Given Half a Chance

by distefanos



Category: Football RPF, Men's Football RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-09-15 06:42:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16928388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/distefanos/pseuds/distefanos
Summary: It is either the beginning or the endof the world, and the choice is ourselvesor nothing.- Carolyn ForchéIn which Eric is sad and Dele is the unbearable lightness and purpose of being.





	Given Half a Chance

With a bang, Eric was thrust back into the world of the living. He rolled onto his back, blinking up at the ceiling, tangled in sheets, sweating profusely, and thoroughly disoriented. Pale strips of checkerboard sunlight reflected palely across the spackle just out of his line of vision. He breathed deeply and ran a hand across the back of his neck, sweat clinging to his fingertips. And then the banging started again.

He sat up. His phone started to vibrate on the bedside table next to him. Without looking he leaned towards it, his hand raking across the table and sending his phone sliding off the edge and clattering to the floor. He ignored the phone-on-the-floor predicament, and the persistent banging, squinting instead out of the open door across from his bed.

Furniture and walls in pastel shades stared dispassionately back at him. A handful of potted plans regarded him with ill-disguised disdain as they stretched towards the sun and wilted without the water Eric wasn't giving them.

_Where the hell am I?_

After what felt half a lifetime, his lethargic mind settled back upon the mystery of the forever vibrating phone. He looked over the side of the bed where his phone had landed face up. He took one look at the name on the phone and his sweat turned cold as everything came flooding back to him.

_DELEte this number_

The racket outside the door in the next room suddenly took on a new form. He had been followed here, he knew now. He had been found. His profligate peace had come to an end. He groaned and sunk back onto his back, pulling the covers up over him in the same motion.

He tried to find unconsciousness again.

***************

Alas, if ignorance was bliss, discovery was pain. He couldn't forget about the knocking at the door and his phone throbbing it's way across the floor. He went for the less intrusive, once again blindly reaching for his phone. Only this time he was able to scoop it into his hand.

A grunted "what."

A pleading yet exasperated "WILL you please answer the door."

"What door?"

"The one I'm knocking at."

"Oh, that one. Don't think so."

"Eric."

"Dele."

" _Eric._ "

"Del."

"Don't do this to me."

"Too late."

Call ended. His phone goes blissfully silent.

**************

Eric, having spent what felt like years of his life at a time on autopilot, was very good at ignoring his problems. Indeed, he had felt almost no guilt when, someday in the past he could not fathom the distance from which he was now, he had packed a small bag, boarded a plane, arrived in a small familiar place, and slipped away to shadows and pale sunlight. 

He was very good at sleeping for large quantities of time which, again unfathomable, ate up some of the sadness he no longer wanted to contain. Couldn't contain.

I am large, I contain multitudes. But I don't have to.

The contradiction of his relationship with Dele had reached into spaces uncontainable to Eric and left him wounded.

Dele would never ever understand. Dele would never ever forgive him this indiscretion of leaving him high and dry.

Which was exactly why Eric did it. He needed to commit a fatal flaw. One that even Dele and Eric could never fix.

In what must have been his first movement in hours, Eric rolled out of bed, had a pee, and sought unconsciousness in the room next door to the one he started in.

*************

On the other side of the wall, Dele clung to three letters like they were his last tie to sanity. He traced them into the sandy concrete with his pinky finger, humming quietly to himself. Because silence is the enemy. His right knuckles were red and swelling slowly after losing a fight with the door separating him and the love of his life.

He didn't just fear the worst, he knew it to be true; but here he was anyway, convinced by the weight of those 3 letters that everything could be okay, somehow.

He shifted slightly, stretched so a different part of his back leaned against the rough concrete, moved one foot closer to his body and stretched out the other leg. The storey above protected him from the sun's assault. A bottle of water collected condensation next to him. The echo of civilization reached him there on the ground from the courtyard beyond his vision, just on the other side of the railing. Somewhere further on, invisible waves crashed against an invisible shore.

He added a second 'E' to the letters he traced on the ground so it lost it's hidden meaning and became just his name again. He brought his sore knuckle to his forehead and pressed it there. He inhaled and exhaled slowly, twice.

Love wasn't supposed to feel like this, was it?

It was a question he had asked himself far too many times.

*************

At one point a tenant of the building stepped across Dele's outstretched legs and turned, studying Dele.

"Are you Dele Alli?"

"Yep."

"What are you doing on the ground at my apartment complex?"

"Honestly? I don't know. Please, no photographs."

It seemed the tenant's stilted english knew no further bounds. "Ok." He agreed, and went on his way.

**************

Eventually, the plants won their staring contest and a slightly more alive Eric Dier padded across the small apartment to fetch them some water. Feeling accomplished by this, he decided to water himself as well and hopped in the shower.

With the momentum sustaining plants had afforded him, he decided to live again, at least for a while. He dressed, slid into some sandals, located his wallet, and prepared himself mentally to venture into the world. He opened the front door and his world came crashing down. His heart went into full throttle and his chest ached upon seeing someone he had convinced himself he didn't miss. His lungs filled up with air, forced a sigh of relief like he hadn't breathed properly until that moment, like he'd forgotten to.

Ignoring all of this he turned and locked the door. With his back still turned, he muttered, "I asked you not to follow me."

"The plants on your balcony are dying." Came the reply.

"We're all dying." Dele shrugged. He followed Eric down the stairs.

They walked along in the only silence Dele knows, which is him chattering away about this and that, expecting and receiving no answers.

***************

Contrary to popular belief, Dele had all the patience in the world. Or he did for Eric, at any rate. He chatted calmly for nearly an hour while they walked towards the beach. He continued to prattle on as Eric ordered food at a beachside pub and ate in silence, staring out towards the water. On he went, still, as they abandoned the pub and headed towards the waterfront.

The sun and its colours were draining out of the sky when Eric finally had words to spare.

"I asked you not to follow me." He repeated, like the words exhausted him.

"I didn't listen." Dele replied.

"You never do." Eric turned to face Dele at the same time that Dele made to embrace him from behind. As the day died Eric let himself be embraced and Dele tried to push everything he possibly could into the embrace. He felt Eric's arms across his back, stiff first, then relaxed there, and he giggled softly into his shoulder.

*****************

Eric sighed as his chest swelled to uncontainable depths and he held his breath. Everything in him relaxed, he sighed and held Dele perfunctorily as his thoughts ebbed back towards manageable things. Once they did he gripped Dele lightly at the elbow, pressed the heel of his thumb into the small of his back. Dele giggled and kissed him on the cheek as they finally separated and Eric leaned over the railing and into the night. He inhaled the comfort of the harsh, saltwater air and felt alive again. His eyes flashed, his cheeks flushed, and his movements felt sudden and decided by something outside of them. He stepped away from the railing and Dele fell in beside him as they headed in the general direction of the apartment. 

Dele reached for Eric's hand and clutched 2 of his fingers in his own. Eric didn't object.

"You have to come back." Dele told him.

"I know." He conceded.

"England misses you."

 

*******************

The return to the apartment was slightly more lively as Dele was now gifted with one-word responses to his prattle. Entering the apartment was rather pleasant as, finally taking his proffered hand, Eric's thumb rubbed persistently against the palm of his hand. When the door swung open Eric was gently ushering him inside, pushing him with slightly more force against the bare wall just next to the door. Closing the door and pressing into Dele in the same motion. Breathing him in. Kissing him softly, then, not so softly. Leading him purposefully towards one of the bedrooms.

And afterwards, peaceful once again with one hand possessively thrown across Dele's chest, breathing heavily, expressionless as he slept.

Dele stared unseeingly at the same ceiling Eric had hours ago, breathing in the heady scent of a hot bedroom on a cool summer night. His heart felt full enough to burst. It always did on nights like these.

**********************

The very next day they left for England together and so the cycle started all over again. Eric and Dele were both keenly aware of the process. Both terrified in their own way that next time the sight of Dele won't be enough to pull Eric back from the edge.

**Author's Note:**

> Perhaps you relate to feeling one way or the other, perhaps you don't.
> 
> Perhaps Eric and Dele do as well, perhaps they don't.


End file.
